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The Editor's Desk: Recommended reading on education and public art

RECOMMENDED READING: It’s been a while since the “Recommended Reading” feature has appeared in The Editor’s Desk, but I’ve recently run across, or been directed to, at least a couple of items that I think are worth passing on.

First, there’s a scathing critique of the Common Core educational standards from a retired teacher in a Louisiana newspaper, The Advertiser. In the piece, retired educator Michael Deshotels writes, “How could standards that were so carefully written to prepare students for college and careers be so wrong on so many fronts? Unfortunately these standards were written by academicians with little or no experience in teaching real students. ... Classroom teachers had almost no input in the formulation of the standards. That’s why the standards are so impractical.”

You’ll find the full commentary online at <http://bit.ly/1pCs8TF.>

Second on today’s list is a story from the Capital Gazette regarding the move away from a set of almost two dozen decorated chicken statues as public art in Annapolis, Md. Such initiatives, featuring animals or other items with links to their locale — think the variously themed bulldog sculptures scattered around Athens — might once have been innovative, but their sheer repetition from city to city has, in my view, rendered them a chintzy commonplace. Here’s the nut of the Capital Gazette piece:

“An influx of new pieces would usher in the next era of Annapolis’ arts district, which was designated by the state in 2008. Olivia Robinson, faculty member at the Maryland Institute College of Art, said public art by its nature reflects the political and social values of those in power.

“At its worst, Robinson said, public art favors commercialization over aesthetics. However, public art can shed light on the social issues of the time period, she said.

“‘Public art has the potential of connecting with important issues of our time and things that really affect people,’ Robinson said.”

The full story can be found online at <http://bit.ly/1s26nAk>.

Finally today, from artnet.com, comes a story illustrating the sometimes problematic nature of public art, particularly with regard to how the jurisdictions in which that art is placed view their custodial responsibilities. The artnet.com story details how Fabien Englemann, the newly elected mayor of the French town of Hayange, had a fountain designed by artist Alain Mila repainted without the artist’s consent. French culture minister Aurelie Filippetti called the painting of the fountain “an obvious violation of the moral right and basic rules of intellectual property and heritage protection.”

For his part, Englemann told artnet.com, “We wanted to lighten up the city center ... We had no intention of damaging the artwork, but everybody thinks [Mila’s] fountain is horrible. ... Do you know how much it cost? If he wants to buy it back, we are happy to sell it to him, and we will remove the blue.”